Your suspicion is correct. Your number gets out there because you give it out, and then 10 years later the company goes under and liquidates their assets which includes a load of customer phone numbers; or because you give it out when you open a credit card or buy a mortgage or car, and you legally can't limit the sharing of your personal info to third parties, who can share your personal info as widely as they want... point is, not having a phone number will be tantamount to not having a social security number in many situations.
> point is, not having a phone number will be tantamount to not having a social security number in many situations.
I think a phone number is shifting to be a replacement for social security numbers in customer databases.
My grocery store/gas station relationship, Guitar Center, jewelry store, and oil/lube service station. And that's just the last week-or-so interactions. They don't know my social, but they're using my phone as a primary key for their rewards/lookup.
For a while, a membership card number would have sufficed, but since no one carries that around, the retailers are assigning your phone number to your identity. Much like social security numbers did for the government back in its inception.
